How patriots act

re: "Rangsiman: Pirapan doesn't own country" (BP, April 11, 2023) 

Dear editor,

Having been nurtured in the Democrat Party and done an internship with Palang Pracharath (PPRP),  Pirapan Salirathavibhaga has found his spiritual home in the United Thai Nation Party (UTN), where he hobnobs with the likes of former PDRC cadre Akenat Prompan, and of course army General Prayut Chan-o-cha, who continues to cling to the political power his took for himself on May 22, 2014. The leader of UTN is to be thanked for most recently raising for public debate what counts as being a patriot of the Thai nation. And what can not so count.

Naturally, at least in a healthy democracy, we expect there to be a variety of contested definitions of what constitutes something so fundamental as patriotism. The sensible starting point are the current (2017) and former (2007), along with several previous, Thai Constitutions, Sections 2 of which are short and clear: "Thailand adopts a democratic regime of government with the King as Head of State" (English trans., Office of the Council of State).

From this, it follows that patriots of the Thai nation are those who serve, protect and nurture Thailand's democratic form of government. There are of course many versions of democracy around the world: the UK version is very different to the US version, and they are different to the Australian and Finnish versions of democracy. There are, however, some non-negotiable foundational principles that must be met if a nation's government is to be honestly described as a democracy. Paramount among these is that citizens be open to their fellow citizens holding and peacefully expressing radically different ideas on what matters, irrespective of how strongly some will disagree. This openness to genuinely, substantively dissenting ideas, which openness alone can correct inherited mistakes and injustices, must be protected by law, which section 34 of the current Thai Constitution weakly appears to do, thereby at least acknowledging the foundational necessity of respect for free speech in a democracy.

From this constitutional foundation, it follows that Thai patriots are those who seek to honestly strengthen and further evolve their nation's democratic form of government, and that necessarily includes identifying weaknesses and suggesting reforms. It entails both presenting and being open to ideas that dissent from old mindsets. There can, otherwise, be no progress. Conversely, those who would stunt such adaptive evolution by insisting there be no wholesome, open discussion of matters of the greatest national importance to the nation can only be the antithesis of patriots, however otherwise they might wish to see themselves.  

The UTN leader's recent tirade seemingly intent on shutting down healthy debate comporting with democratic principle is consistent with the known membership of that party. It will be most interesting to see how the polling goes on May 14. Thanks to Mr. Pirapan's outburst about "nation haters", the general election will serve as a useful proxy poll on what percentage of the Thai nation shares UTN's articles of faith. The evidence will not, I suspect, be pleasing to Prime Minister Prayut's party newly minted from antique coin. 

Thailand, meanwhile, should perhaps follow the example already set them by South Korea's May 18 Memorial Foundation and similarly honour its true patriots. Why, after all, should Thai heroes of their own democracy be internationally honoured by foreign democracies yet not by their own democratic nation long aspiring to reap the happiness, political, social, moral and economic, that correlates so strongly with liberal democracy? 

 Felix Qui 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on April 14, 2023, under the title "How patriots act" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2549566/handling-refugees